Murder, Mystery & Makeup - The Lipstick Killer: Murderer, Scapegoat, or Something Much Darker?

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Hi friends! Happy Tuesday! First of all... Disclaimer: Today's episode contains discussions of violence, murder, and sensitive topics that may be disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised. Okay. Picture this... Chicago, winter of 1945. The city is frozen under a sheet of ice, but inside a quiet apartment on the north side… something very dark was being uncovered. Detectives enter an apartment, push open the door and just stop dead in their tracks. The air is still and thick. The room smells like iron, something sickly sweet. And then detectives see it. On the wall, scrawled in janky ass writing, there's a message written in the victims red lipstick saying: “For heaven’s sake catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.” Was it a confession? A warning? And the biggest question, what if they meant it? It's a message that would send the city into full blown panic and launch a manhunt for a killer who, even after being caught, would leave people thinking, was that the right guy? This story couldn't be more on brand because today we are talking about... The Lipstick Killer. Also, let me know who you want me to talk about next time. Hope you have a great rest of your week, make good choices and I'll be seeing you very soon. xo Bailey Sarian ________ FOLLOW ME AROUND Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Goodreads: https://bit.ly/44P51lp Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian RECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Business Related Emails: [e-mail] Business Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505 _________ Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, and save more than fifty percent at selectquote.com/MAKEUP. Save more than fifty percent on term life insurance at selectquote.com/MAKEUP TODAY to get started. That’s selectquote.com/MAKEUP. Shop my favorite pajamas at SKIMS.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you! Select "podcast" in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. And if you’re looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list - the SKIMS Holiday Shop is now open at SKIMS.com. Use code MAKEUP at Jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Cool Gloss with your first purchase! These sell out fast so get them while they last! After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show and tell them our show sent you.

Less than an hour from downtown Toronto, you'll feel a world away with Durham Tourism's new discovery guide, open skies, explore day trip destinations, overnight getaways, and 129 must-try experiences in Durham region, from historic sites to starry nights and delicious days to downtown dates. Want to keep your luggage light and your dollars in Canada? Discover Durham region's open skies. To get your guide, visit durhamtourism.ca.ca slash discover. Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian, and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian, and on Mondays, I like to sit down and talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin, and I do my makeup at the same time. You know, just like, get ready for my day. But today we're talking about the Chicago lipstick killer, which I was like, I haven't, I haven't done. on the lipstick killer? How I've been not done the lip stick killer? I mean, hello. So, listen, ready? Okay. Chicago, 1945, it's winter. Okay, the city is frozen under like a sheet of ice. But inside a quiet apartment on the north side, something very dark was being uncovered. Detectives, they enter an apartment. They push open the door and they just stop. The air, it's still. It's thick.

The room smells like iron. You know, something sickly and sweet. And then detectives see it. On the wall, scrawled in like janky-ass writing, there's a message written in the victim's red lipstick saying, For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself. Was it a confession?

Was it a warning? And the biggest question, do they mean it? Yeah? Now it was a message that would send the city into like full-blown panic and launch a manhunt for a killer who even after being caught would leave people thinking, was that the right guy? Today we're talking about the lipstick killer.

Okay, so Chicago, January 1945, The city, phrasing, well, I consider it freezing. I'm sure some of you will be like, that's not freezing. But the temperatures would be around like 20 degrees Fahrenheit or negative 6.66666. Celsius, which is kind of creepy. There was snow piling up and heavy smog, like hanging in the air, so thick that the city turned the street lights on during the day so people could see. You know, factories, they are a thing. They were cranking out bomb.

planes, engines, you name it. World War II was going on. So men are off at war and whatnot. So a lot more women and migrants were filling jobs in these giant plants. Rationing was like in full swing. But the people were, they were still trying to find little ways to keep life feeling normal. Like, you know, going down to shop on Maxwell Street or going downtown to see a show. Because World War II was the backdrop to everything. Every newspaper headline was about the war.

Nazis and bomber planes. I mean, fair. It makes sense. But the people of Chicago, you know, they were tough. And even with the world at war, the city was doing the most and really just moving forward. But things were starting to feel uneasy. Like something was wrong. Okay? and it started with just whispers and rumors. People were talking. Rumors were going around that there were actually numerous women found dead in their apartments. There was like a little girl who just seemed to vanish from her bedroom without a trace. People were freaked out. At first, many thought like they were just morbid rumors, brushing it off as just kind of that. But then came the bodies and then the graphic details.

News got out that like a woman was stabbed and left in her bed. Another, she was shot and strangled. Her walls covered with a message, again written in bright red lipstick. And then a child butchered and her remains were discovered piece by piece because she was chopped up and, everywhere. The newspapers started printing headlines across like every front page saying lipstick killer strikes again or city and terror monster at large. And like now to all the people, these were like no longer rumors. I mean, it was really happening. People were freaked out. And they

went out and they purchased extra locks for their doors, double locking at night. Some even, I guess, just slid their heavy dressers in front of their door just to make sure like no could get in when they were sleeping. It was said that mothers started to keep their kids inside too afraid to let them go anywhere alone. And all of the hardware stores, they could not keep padlocks or window bars in stock. It was like a full-on panic. Every single morning, the papers they would sell out. People stood in line to get the latest update thinking that maybe if they read about the killer, or like just staying in the know of what was going on might keep them safe. And I get that because I feel like we do that now.

But without an update about an arrest or like a headline reading, Killer Captured, the people knew like whoever this was was just out there. Maybe watching. I don't know. Maybe it's that guy. I don't know. Waiting. And no matter how many locks they bought, I mean, how safe were they really? So the victims, you know, they weren't just some name and a headline. I mean, these are real people whose lives were cut short in, like, very brutal ways. 43-year-old Josephine Ross was a woman with plans, baby. She was divorced three times.

That's okay. But at the time, she was living with her daughters. She spent a lot of her days. It was said going to the movies, going to fortune tellers, all while she was also courting two men. Apparently one of them was, like, her fee. but I don't know if she could, I don't know. Either way, she was dating. Josephine had big dreams of opening up her own restaurant one day and she was actually like working towards that, trying to get one of the banks to approve like her loans, but because

she's a woman, you know, it was difficult. But she was working towards that goal. So on a warm June day in 1945, Josephine's daughter, she had come home for lunch. And when she came to back to the apartment, she found it like completely ransacked. So she said that she said that She walked into her mother's bedroom, and that's where she saw her mom on the bed. There was blood everywhere. Then in the bathroom, there were several pieces of Josephine's clothing in a pool of bloody water, like in the tub. As if the killer was trying to wash her clothing. Now, the only thing that was stolen from the home was some pocket change.

So it was clear, like, this wasn't a robbery. It seemed to be an act of, like, some serious rage. Now, naturally, you're like, okay, it's one of the freaking boyfriends, right? Yeah. I know. But police came out to the scene, but they were unable to find any fingerprints. Again, they knew Josephine was dating. So, of course, they went and they questioned the men that she was seeing. But they had very, they had strong alibis. The police, they also questioned the building's custodian and a nearby tenant. Both had told police they had seen a man want to. the building and he was just kind of looked at a place a little bit. He had dark hair. He was wearing a white sweater and dark pants. The custodian told the police that he seemed to be around like 190 pounds, this guy. So, okay, not much, but it's something, right? The police investigated and questioned a ton of people for about two months, but it really just like, Like, it went nowhere pretty fast.

Then, six months later, in December, there was another victim found. It's the end of the year, which means I'm taking a look at my to-do list from January. And right at the top of the list is something I had been putting off for years. Looking into life insurance.

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insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash makeup. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at select quote.com slash makeup today to get started. That's select quote.com slash makeup. 33 year old Francis Brown. She actually had like just moved back. She was serving as a volunteer in the Navy Waves. I was like, what's that? Waves, it stood for women accepted for volunteer emergency service. Basically, it was the woman's branch of the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Women who joined worked stateside jobs like clerks, mechanics, radio operators, and so much more. All so that more men could be sent to fight overseas. Women weren't, like, in combat, but they were a big deal on the home front. They were keeping things running while the war was going on. So Francis was doing that, and then she was honorably discharged in 1945. So she returns to Chicago, and she ends up living in an apartment with a roommate. Her name was Viola Butler, and I don't know how they met, but, like, okay. Frances, she quickly found a job working at a manufacturing company and again was just, okay, she's like back trying to rebuild her life now in Chicago.

So on the morning of December 10th, Francis's roommate had gone off to stay with a friend. So she was gone and she was saying the roommate was like staying overnight somewhere. Francis, she made a phone call at 9.30 a.m. and she called up her mom to let her know that she was going to come and visit her. visit for Christmas. And sadly, that would be the last time anyone would talk to poor Francis. On the morning of December 11th, the housemaid, her name was Martha. She went to go check on Francis, like to her, in her apartment. Because there was like some complaints that Francis was playing the radio way too loud and it was like nine in the morning. So people were complaining that the radio, it was like cranked all the way up. So Martha, she goes to

Frances's apartment and she notices that the door was left a jar. She peeks into the room and she saw that the bed was covered with blood and there was a trail leading to the bathroom. So she goes in and she's like, you know, to investigate the situation. And that's where she found Francis's body. It was like, God damn. Then that's when Martha came across a message that was written in Francis's bright red lipstick, saying, and it was written on the wall next to some lamps, and it said, for heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself. Now, some of the letters were capital, some were lowercase. Maybe it was just easier to, I don't know. No one's really ever really addressed that whole situation. But we'll get into that in a minute. Look at the picture.

creepy so police again come out to the scene just and just like josephine's apartment francis's apartment had been ransacked but again no valuables were missing they were able to find one smudged bloody fingerprint on the door jam i know i was like what about the lipstick where's a lipstick i don't think they found the lipstick they questioned the neighbor because the neighbor said that they they thought they heard gunshots at like 4 a.m. And then the night clerk, police also questioned, they told police that also it was like around 4 a.mish, they saw a man who seemed to look a little nervous exiting the elevator. Now, the night clerk thought that the man was around 35 to 40 years old and like 140 pounds. That's like all they got.

Investigators looked into several different suspects. And for a while, they really thought. maybe the killer was a woman because it was written in lipstick, woman, you know? But also because whoever wrote the message, the killer, used the phrase for heaven's sake, which according to them seemed to be a more feminine phrase than masculine. And I was like, oh, interesting. But that's, you know, that's not really all I got. But everyone investigators talked to had strong alibis and there just was really nothing.

things just kind of stood still. And then came the victim, no one in Chicago would forget. Suzanne Degnan. Now, Suzanne was only six years old, and she was the eldest of two daughters to Jim and Helen Degnan. Now, Jim was kind of like an important guy, Suzanne's father. He worked for the Office of Price Administration, which had been started during the war to regulate rationing and help prevent wartime inflation. So after a busy day, Helen had put Suzanne down for bed. She remembered that nothing out of the ordinary happened that night except that like there were some like dogs barking outside.

So everyone goes to sleep. Helen remembers waking up in the middle of the night because she thought she heard Suzanne crying. So she wakes up and she wakes gym up. And after a few minutes, like they listen and they hear nothing and I think nothing of it and they go back to sleep. The next morning, it's January 7th.

Jim, he goes upstairs to wake Suzanne up for school, you know? And he gets upstairs and he, the first thing that was weird to him was that Suzanne's door was closed and he thought that was weird because Suzanne never closed her door. She was like afraid of the dark.

So her door was always open. So he's like, okay, weird. So he opens up the door and when he did, he was like hit with just this cold freezing. air was freezing in there. And he noticed that her window was wide open. And he looks and her bed was empty. Suzanne was gone. So the family is searching every inch of the home trying to find Suzanne, but she is nowhere to be found. So police are called and they, you know, they show up

quick and they began to investigate. They even got like a new police commissioner involved because they had been receiving some bad PR for letting the previous murders go unsolved. So they brought in this new guy. He's going to solve the mystery. So the police are all searching the home. And one of them comes up a like a crumpled up ransom note that had most likely blown off the bed. Because you know the window was open. Wind.

Yeah. So they're like, oh. And it was like all crumpled up. So they opened it up. And the note, it said, get $20,000 ready and wait for word. Do not notify FBI or police. Bills in fives and tens. The handwritten note was filled with misspellings.

And it ended with burn this for her safety. So $20,000 was a lot. In today's money, it would be like over $350,000. So they were asking for some money. Well, okay, so, I mean, investigators are on it, but 12 hours later, the police, they receive an anonymous phone call, telling them to go check the local sewers. So they did. And that's where they found Suzanne, at least like what was left of her. Oh, it was gross and sad. She was chopped up and scattered all through the sewers and drains of Chicago. go. So just in different places. Now what really stood out to investigators was that her body was dismembered with great precision. Like it was done by someone who knew human anatomy very well. I know. I was like, is this Jack the Ripper? Is this Jack the Ripper? No, I don't know. Maybe. No. Jack the

the Ripper. No. Anyways, but you know what I'm saying. Like just it was, it was odd. Now that a child is is a victim. You know, the manhunt intensifies. People are now really, like, scared. There was various newspapers. There was different organizations. There were private individuals who were offering rewards for information on the killer. The newspapers, they were selling out before dawn. All of the headlines, again, bold about, like, this lipstick killer on the loose and like, watch out for your kids. People were more paranoid than ever. This is when, like, mothers and fathers,

they put bars over their windows at night, not at night, just in general. And it was said that a lot of fathers would stay up at night sitting with, like, a loaded gun, just in case. The panic and the fear was real. The other day I took a look in my dresser, and I realized all my pajamas are old. A lot of them have holes in the...

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As soon as I get home, pajamas on. And with skims offering matching sets for women, men, kids and even pets, you can go a full-on cozy family core this holiday season. Ooh, get matching pajamas. Take a little family photo. Look at us. We're in pajamas. We're so cute. Yay. The Skim's sleep set has totally upgraded my nights and honestly, it makes me feel more put together. Especially when I'm wearing a matching pajama set, I don't know what it is, but it's like, ooh, I have it together. Everything is fine. Everything is great. I don't know what that is. But whatever, it's cute and I feel, I feel cute. So if you're ready to take your bedtime from K.

to cozy, Skims has your back. Shop my favorite pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let him know I sent you. Select podcasts in the survey, and be sure to select my show in the drop-down menu that follows. And if you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com. So theories were, you know, all over the press and like in the streets, really. each paper kind of seemed to have their own theory the most common one was that a lot of people especially when it came to suzanne degnon's murder a lot of people had theories there because her father was kind of this like big wig guy others swore like it was a bitter butcher who recently got laid off thanks to wartime rationing which suzanne's father would be responsible for so people were thinking

Like, it was someone that was angry at Suzanne's father. But this was all just, you know, speculation, rumors. Even the ransom note became like a super hot topic. You know, some insisting that the misspellings meant that the killer was poor and uneducated. But a lot of people were like, I think like these misspellings were on purpose, probably like a cover for someone who was actually wealthy and classically trained in music. Yeah. But everyone, you know, everyone just is thinking and sharing. But the detectives, you know, they're drowning. They interrogated hundreds of suspects. They pulled random suspects from their beds and like beat them up to, in hopes to get confessions out of them. One poor man was tortured for like two days before being released. He was never charged. But obviously after that, he was pretty messed up. suspect turned out to be like nothing more than an unlucky man in the wrong place at the wrong time. The newspapers were demanding answers and the mayor demanded results from the police

department. And it seemed like for a second here they got their answer. But then a nurse named Richard Thomas ended up coming forward and confessing to Suzanne's murder from a jail cell in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, this is weird. What was he doing out there? Because they investigated this guy. And they went out and they tested his handwriting and it matched. It was very similar to the ransom note. He had a medical background, which fit the theory that the killer had knowledge of anatomy. And he knew certain details that weren't public. But for some reason, the police weren't satisfied. Investigators determined that most likely Richard was giving a false confession to try to avoid being prosecuted for his crime in Arizona. So they let it go. It seemed like

Chicago's lipstick killer was like a freaking ghost. There were no strong leads. There was no one coming forward to say anything of substance. It was just dead end after dead end. But on June, 26, 1946, fate or I don't know, just dumb luck changed everything. So in an upscale neighborhood, it was like not far from where Suzanne had lived. There was a neighbor who had spotted someone trying to break into someone's apartment. So they called the police and police show up quick. The suspect was like just a boy tried to run and then turned around and like tried to shoot at the police with a gun that that ended up misfiring.

So two cops and the boy were like kind of wrestling each other. When an off-duty officer who happened to be like out on his balcony, he was like looking down watching the fight. So he's watching. And this guy on the balcony, he straight up like grabs his clay flower pots and he drops three of them over the balcony right onto the suspect's head. Eventually knocked him unconscious. I know. It sounds very loony tunes. So the suspect was first taken to the hospital where police were able to, like, get his wallet and check his pockets and stuff. And in his wallet, there was a University of Chicago student ID card stating that their suspect was 17-year-old William Herons. Now, William was 5'10. He was 155 pounds. And that's what they knew so far. Also, in his

pocket, they found a letter signed George M. So William is in custody for burglary. So with this, the police then go search his dorm room, which is like, okay, well, they do. And in his room, they found two suitcases with a bunch of stolen goods inside. There were pistols, jewelry, watches, war bonds that he couldn't cash. There was a surgical kit and a hypodermic kit. Like a collection of medical equipment used for injections or drawing fluids from the body. They also found fanboy scrapbooks with some photos of Hitler and like other notable Nazis. Well, arts and craft, young man, they're thinking he likes his arts and crafts. Along with all this, they find a questionable book.

It's called Psychopathia Sexualis. It's by Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Kraft Ebinger. Now, this book was the manual of sexual deviance in the late 1800s. Okay, this was like a questionable book to have. In the book, it's filled with unique case studies where behaviors like fetishism, sadism, and masochism were explained, and like people are like learning about this for the first time. And at the time, they were considered and labeled as a disease. Like in the book, they describe a man who could only get in the mood by staring at a pair of shiny boots.

Nothing else worked. Just shiny boots. Shiny boots. Things like that. But the nail in the coffin, two investigators, they took fingerprints from William and they compared them to the fingerprints lifted from the ransom note left in suzanne's room and it was a match kind of depending on who you ask so here's a thing the print from the note was it was partial and it was smudged but the police they said they found seven points where william's print matched the print on the note seven points meaning and i'm trying

to explain this in like the best way possible that i can explain this is like when they look at your fingerprint, they match points on your print with the points on, on whatever, the other fingerprint. Does that make sense? Probably not. But they matched seven points. Okay. And at that time, that was considered enough to call it a match, having like seven points match. Later on, when the police were under fire, they claimed that actually it was 15 points that matched. Was it Airtight? No, not exactly. But back then, it was more than enough for them to say like, this is our guy. I'll explain the whole points thing a little bit later on too. So just follow. Just follow me. So investigators, they tried to question William in the hospital,

but either he was unconscious or at times pretending to be unconscious. For six days, he was held not allowed to talk to a lawyer. He was not allowed to even talk to his parents. It was just round the clock interrogation. Eventually when like William Foley came back to, he was uncooperative and he appeared to be confused at one point, like calling the police commissioner, father. Now they wanted to know like, is he just, is he acting? Is he messing with us? So the doctors, they decided to do like an x-ray on William and see if he had any head trauma, you know, a fracture, something. Maybe that's why he's acting like this, but they determined that there was no fracture or head trauma, which led police to believe that he was faking it. So they're trying to get anything from William, you know?

They just want him to freaking talk. So the head of psychiatry was brought in and suggested that they used sodium pentothal. This was a narcotic that was mainly used as an anesthetic. But after World War II, it was like being used in psychiatric treatments, mainly for soldiers who were suffering from shell shock. That's a tongue-tie shell shock. But you've probably heard of it because most people, a lot of people called it the truth serum, even though that's not fully accurate. So what this does is it actually lowers your inhibitions and makes you more likely to say things that you might otherwise keep to yourself, like shiny boots. But it doesn't necessarily mean what you say is 100% true. That makes sense? Yes. So the doctor comes in and gives William

sodium pentothal. And this is where, like, his story takes an odd turn. So William, he didn't confess. Instead, he blamed someone else. Police asked him, you know, did you kill Suzanne Degnan? And William responded saying, quote, George cut her up. George is a bad boy. I tried to make George be a good boy. I tried to get him to reform. I didn't want him to be a bad boy, end quote. George, huh?

Police were like, who the fuck is this George guy? You know, who's George? And William told them that George was five years older than him, and they had met, like, a long time ago at school, and they saw each other, like, pretty often. So they're like, well, what's George's last name? Like, give us his last name. It said that William said George's last name was, quote, a murmuring name, end quote.

A murmuring name was his answer. So police, they translated this to Murman. They're like, his name must be George Murman. I okay William said that he had given George the piece of paper that he used to write the ransom note on and that's why his

prints were on it and remember when they first got William in his pocket they found his school ID and then they also found a note in there that was signed George M so they're like okay George Merman I don't know so the police it wasn't the clean confession

that they wanted but it was enough for them so police they went out and they searched high and low for a man named George Murman, and they couldn't find anyone with that name. So, you know, after getting frustrated, police, they determined that George was like an alter ego of William, like, you know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. So police, they actually went to the press and they announced that William had confessed to the murders, even though he didn't. It didn't matter, though.

The next morning, newspapers everywhere were running with the headline, Lipsic Killer confesses. Not good. You ever sit down and you have like five minutes to get ready and you're like, oh no, but my makeup routine is like 17 steps. How am I going to do this in five minutes? You need a five minute routine.

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sets. They won't be here for long, and once they're gone, they're gone. Also, as a treat for our listeners, you'll get a free cool gloss on your first purchase when you use code makeup at checkout. Just head to jones roadbeautcom and use code makeup at checkout. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support my show and tell them I sent you. so with the quote unquote confession secured the police kind of worked backwards to make the evidence fit so police had william write down word for word what the ransom note said like they said it to him out loud and then william like wrote it down and when he was finished investigators found that there was not a handwriting match but that some of the words were misspelled the same from the the ransom note he misspelled some of the same words police also found like a personal item of williams back at his dorm and he had written his initials on it w h and it was noted that the w was made with two overlapping vs just like on the ransom note they were like see i mean it

wasn't the strongest evidence but detectives were not going to give up they would come and interrogate him day after day, hour after freaking hour. And when their threats didn't work, they got violent. At one point, they freaking strapped William down to a cot and they beat him up pretty bad in hopes to like get him to confess. And through it all, William kept denying that he did any of these things and that he'd never touched those women. The police try to connect the fingerprint that was found on the door jam at Francis's place to William. Again, they concluded that it was a match. Kind of.

Kind of. However, the night clerk who said that they saw a nervous-looking man leaving the elevator the same day as Francis' murder, they questioned him. And they're like, hey, is this William guy? They show him a picture. Is this the man you saw that night? And according to the night clerk, William was not the man he saw.

So detectives, investigators, whatever, they're like, all right, you know, what about that surgical kit? Yeah. So now they were fully set on that surgical kit. They were thinking, okay, this is got to be it. These were the tools used to cut up the victims. Yes. William told investigators that he actually used this kit to scrape off names from war bonds so that he could print new names on them.

Essentially, he was like, what's that crime? He was just like a scammer, a burglar, a con artist. So he was admitting to that. But the police and even the press, they were set on that freaking surgical kit being the tool William used to dismember Suzanne's body. They had presented this as fact to the public even before testing it. So newspapers are running the story like, the surgical kid is how he did it and police are kind of confirming it like yep mm-hmm yeah yep

that's it well the kit eventually it gets sent off to a lab to get tested and when the results came back the surgical kid the items had no trace of human blood on them nothing so uh-oh this is reminding me of that meme i love that meme where it's like i look dead good so investigators are freaking like they want William to be the guy so freaking bad. So they're like, okay, William, what's up with those, like, Nazi, like, scrapbooks then? And that book, Psychopathia Sexualis. Yeah, what's up with that? Because only, like, murderers would have items like that.

And William, his excuse was that, or his reasoning, or is it his excuse, whichever one he'd prefer, was that he had robbed someone's house and it was just some of the items he took. That's why he had it. Now, William seemed to have answers for everything, and this drove detectives nuts. They were like, he's got a freaking answer for everything. Either way, it didn't matter. You know, William was placed under solitary confinement and was watched round the clock. So by the time William was finally allowed to see a lawyer, I mean, the damage was already done.

His face was plastered on every single newspaper in Chicago. the state had already compiled a case on him with the evidence that they had quote, unquote, found, even though it was like circumstantial. I mean, to the city and to the people, they finally caught this awful freaking monster. Hooray, everyone said. So on July 14th, the state attorney met with Williams lawyers and offered a plea deal. In exchange for confessing to Francis, Suzanne, and Josephine's murders, he would receive just one life sentence and avoid the electric chair. Now, William's lawyers, you know, they were under pressure

from police, the press, even the judge, and they were advising William to just plead guilty. Just do it. And after the meeting about the plea deal, I guess the press was like waiting patiently for like an update, right, so they can report on it. And when they didn't, receive an update, the press, they freaking made up their own false confession. And they ran it in the paper as fact, which is shocking. But I'm thinking about that today. I'm like people do. Okay. Anyways, then other newspapers, you know, they just kind of reprinted it and just further sharing this false confession. William said that he learned about his quote unquote confession while listening to the radio in his jail cell.

He was like, oh, that's new news to me. Great. Love this town. With everyone declaring him guilty, William and his lawyers decided the safest move was to just go along with the plea deal. Like, there was no way out of this. There's no way out of this.

The idea was for William to write up a confession based on what the newspapers had already printed, say what everyone wanted to hear, and then he would avoid the electric chair. But when it came time to actually like give the confession, I guess William just froze. He completely backed out. Later, he explained why.

William said that when everyone, the lawyers, the cops, the press were all gathered in like this room, the state's attorney kept declaring, at last the truth will come out. And he was like saying it over and over and over again. And William said he thought to himself, you know what you really want the truth fine i'll give you the truth the truth is not guilty he didn't do it it was like the biggest middle finger i was like damn good for you oh sickburn i guess when he said this

everyone in the courtroom you know gasped william said that nobody in the room was truly interested in the truth. They just wanted him to play along, get this case closed, done and over with. Now, that whole move pissed the state attorney off so much that he tore up the plea deal and he changed the sentence from one life term to three consecutive life terms. So on September 4th, 1946, it was time for Williams' sentencing hearing in the criminal court of Cook County. One surprising moment came from Mary Jane Blanchard. She was actually the daughter of Josephine Ross, one of the victims. So she shows up and she said she believed William was being framed.

People were like, what? Her reasoning, none of her mother's belongings were found. among all the stuff that he'd stolen and was taken as evidence. She was really like the only one to stand up and mention like, hey, maybe this isn't the guy. Anyone else? Like, no one agreed.

But good for her. So after the hearing, William pleaded guilty to all of the burglary charges. And then after a long pause and hesitation and doubt, he pleaded guilty to the murders. The judge delayed the final sentence. sentence until the next day. And during that night, William actually tried to end his life, but the guards they had caught him in time and they stopped it. The next morning, the court

made it official. William Herons was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. So even after decades behind bars, William Herons has never stopped claiming that he was innocent. He started out at Stateville, which is a maximum security prison. And then I guess he figured out like a way to get himself transferred to the psychiatric unit at Menard, which was supposedly like a little less strict. So according to reports, he staged a little performance to make himself look quote unquote crazy. And I was like, what do you do? He collected five big stones and he like threw them at a guard tower to sell the whole like I'm crazy thing. That's all I could find. And I was like, that's not crazy. I can show you crazy. But it seemed to work and he got transferred and he spent like the next

five years at Menard before being sent back to state bill. In 1949, he filed a petition to win a hearing to reexamine the evidence and consider how police and the media treated him. He was saying he got like an unfair trial and that the police did not follow protocol, but also his rights. The Illinois Supreme Court, they acknowledged that the police had actually violated his rights. You know, they were searching his things without a warrant. They drugged him and grilled him nonstop. They strapped him to a hospital bed, beat the crap out of him. And the Supreme Court, they called the police's behavior, quote,

deserving of the severest condemnation. I was like, okay, so I haven't. Like, I don't know what happened to those police officers, but at least they got verbally called out. I don't know. But at the end of the day, the Illinois Supreme Court, they upheld William's conviction because the case was settled on a plea bargain.

Severe's condemnation. What is it even for mean? I don't know. punishment okay great but like what you know what's crazy i gotta find anything about william's like parents and stuff kind of sad but maybe they just didn't want to be associated with the guy because i mean everyone was labeling him like a freaking crazy sick killer but in prison i guess william you know he kept himself busy he took college courses like through the mail even to pen state and in 1972 he became the first illinois inmate to earn a college

degree. He was eventually moved to minimum security and was transferred in 1975 to an experimental prison called Vienna Correctional Center. It's in Vienna, Illinois. This definitely piqued my interest. I was like, what do you mean experimental? So here, there are no guard towers, there's no fences, and there's even like some co-ed programs as part of the experiment. to see if a less harsh environment could help reform inmates. I was like, is this still around? And it is. And I was going down a rabbit hole to see, like, case studies.

Like, is it good? Is it better or whatever? But I was getting off track. Interesting. In 1983, a U.S. magistrate actually ordered Williams' release, saying that he had been rehabilitated. But the next year, it was overturned. And he stayed put.

And it seemed like William throughout his prison life just had these like, oh, almost. Over the years, I mean, he filed petition after petition after petition denied every single time. At one of his last hearings in August of 2007, William, where William was denied parole for the 30th time, one of the board members straight up looked at him in the eyes. and said, God will forgive you, but the state won't. Damn. I was like, damn, damn. On March 5th, 2012, after 65 years in prison, William Herons died from diabetes at the age of 83.

So he spent literally more of his life in prison than out. Listen, though. After all these years, all these headlines, the confessions, the trials, the trials. did they actually catch the right guy? This is what got me into this whole story because I was like, once you start digging, it's muddy, his confession. It came, his confession,

came after days of torture when he had been strapped down, beaten, drugged, and the press, they already labeled him guilty. The evidence? Not much better. The fingerprint on the ransom note, it was just a 7.9 point, whatever, point match when the FBI requires a 12 point match period. In the beginning, they weren't claiming that.

They claimed it later to make the F to like say that they matched, but the surgical kit, they claimed he used to to dismember Suzanne. I mean, no blood, no DNA on it. The handwriting. Experts later said that the lipstick message and ransom note did not match Williams' handwriting. And And I think what was like most interesting of all is there was that other man who confessed to Suzanne's murder. He was a nurse named Richard Thomas. And at the time of Suzanne's murder, he actually lived near her home. He was technically a nurse, but I believe he was telling people he was like a surgical doctor or something. He was lying to people.

His handwriting, it matched the ransom note. he had the medical medical training. Yes, he was all the way out in Arizona and he was serving a sentence for molesting his daughter. Okay? But in my personal opinion,

I think that they dropped it because that would mean that the Chicago police would have to get like the Arizona police involved and that it was just probably too much work. And it was like once they had William on their radar, it was weird.

Police just determined that Thomas was unreliable. and just disappeared from the story. I mean, he might have been lying or whatever, but it was like, what about that guy, though? Because he seems like the one, he's got the medical background.

He seems like the one. So, you know, you know, was William, like, truly this killer monster guy? Or was he, like, just in the wrong place at the wrong time? A convenient scapegoat to, like, solve these murders. And then, like, if it wasn't him, who was it? Vappers, I don't know.

Will we ever know? Probably no. I mean, in the end, it always comes back to that writing on the wall, that message that was written in Francis's lipstick. If William wasn't the one who did all this, then the person who did it just got away, right? I mean, I was thinking, like, did they stop? Did they stop killing? Or were there, like, more murders that happened maybe in that area that weren't linked

together because they didn't want that bad press. It's just like questions I don't think we'll ever have the answers to. Oh, but I'm not sure they had the right guy. And even if William was the guy who did it, he didn't get like a fair trial and like there wasn't anything really linking him to it other than the press running the stories that he did it and his fingerprint kind of matching. What about that George Merman guy? Where's the out? I don't know. I feel bad.

There's an interview you can watch on YouTube. A woman, I think she's a journalist. She goes in and she actually interviews William and he kind of tells the story a little bit if you're interested in seeing that at all. I mean, at the end of day, was William really the lipstick killer? Or just another victim?

I don't know, bitch. Well, guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Other than that, I hope you have a good rest of your day. Be safe out there. Okay. Make good choices. And I'll be seeing you guys later. Goodbye.